Bad-el-Kazar

The great city-state of Ireth has existed for nearly all recorded history, and for most of its existence, it has been known for its legendary mage academy. But that Ireth is long gone. In its place is a nightmare filled with monsters and madmen. The city’s walls overflow with blood and violence, with the decay of corruption seeping into its very foundations. The blame for this transformation has been laid at the feet of the legendary Grandmaster of the mage academy: the powerful necromancer Bad-el-Kazar. Kazar was not always an evil soul, but he was always ambitious and highly skilled. Little is known of his early life, beyond that his name was once Valkanen and that he eventually fell to the dark temptations of Siroth. Whether his fall was before or after he fled Ireth following a bloody incident in which dozens of mages and scholars were slain, few know, but when Kazar returned to the city he was a changed man in mind and body. He swiftly took control, letting none stand in his way, even those he once counted as friends, though his victories were always political and peaceful, won with cunning. It seems he desired to keep his allegiance to Siroth to himself, though archived accounts tell of his skin growing more pallid, his veins darker, and his eyes more hollow, with each passing month. A handful of more charitable scholars who have studied Ireth’s history dare suggest that Bad-el-Kazar’s motives were not purely evil. They posit that they were – and may still be – partially rooted in desperation, in a desire to restore life to those slain in the disaster he fled the city after years earlier. Such claims have never been verified. Initially, Kazar’s rule was, by most reports, highly successful. The numbers learning in the academy grew, the city's population rose, and each day new discoveries were made… until Kazar led a fateful expedition. Driven by visions supported by his research of archaic texts, Kazar orchestrated a grand voyage from Ireth to the Winterlands in the far north. His goal was to find a site of ancient power, rumored to predate even the Gray Age. Kazar set sail with a fleet, promising to return by the following winter. Six years passed, and all were assumed lost. Ireth’s interim Grandmaster was fully inducted into the role. Funerals were held. Life moved on. And then Kazar’s flagship appeared on the horizon, alone. As the vessel drew close, the onlookers gasped: the crew were little more than bone and rotting flesh. Undead. The most arresting sight of all was Bad-el-Kazar himself, standing at the prow, cloaked in tattered raiment, his flesh gray and dying. He had revealed himself as a necromancer. When Kazar disembarked his vessel, the crowd parted, and the new Grandmaster approached him with trepidation. Would Bad-el-Kazar choose to punish the hubris of those who had doubted his return? If he did, would any be able to stop him? But Kazar was magnanimous in his victory. He accepted the Grandmaster’s apology, reassumed the mantle of Grandmaster himself, and presented the mage academy with the fruits of his expedition: the cargo hold of his ship was filled with bottle after bottle of a mysterious liquid. It resembled water, but even the least magically sensitive person could sense the power radiating from it. Kazar called it the Water of Life, and claimed it would change the world. None argued. It certainly changed Ireth. Kazar maintained strict control over the substance, portioning it out carefully to the most powerful mages in the city. They experimented with it, creating potions of incredible power. Consuming these granted the imbiber unbelievable abilities, and hugely amplified their strengths. They called the process Ascension, but it had a dark side. It exaggerated personalities. The cautious became paranoid. The ambitious became obsessive. The agitated became furious. The proud became vain. Psychopathy ran rampant, and the mages' experiments took ever-darker turns. More and more of the academy’s leading members undertook Ascension, and so there were fewer and fewer voices speaking out against the escalations. Test subjects were seized in their beds. Monsters were left to wander the streets. City guards were replaced with twisted mannequins, and the gates were barred to prevent the population from escaping. Madness gripped the city, and that grip has never loosened. None know precisely what became of those trapped within the city’s walls. Those few who escaped spoke of a nightmarish hellscape, as the city twisted itself to serve the mad designs of Ascended archmagi. Among it all was Bad-el-Kazar. Even as his city went mad around him, his subjects remained loyal. He was the undisputed Grandmaster of Ireth. That was centuries ago. Since then, Bad-el-Kazar has been sighted beyond the city’s walls, wandering the backroads of Teleria. What his goals are, none know.